


Pockets.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Jedi Council - Freeform, Mace Windu is a marshmallow and also a very good mentor, jedi order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27209434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: It is commonly known that Master Windu’s robes possess a remarkable feature.His robes contain pockets.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Mace Windu
Comments: 15
Kudos: 228





	Pockets.

Robes do not make a Jedi, it is commonly said at the Temple, but a Jedi makes his own robes. 

Younglings attend sewing classes to learn how to thread a needle and place messy, uneven stitches in linen napkins and tablecloths; initiates are expected to be able to repair their own ripped tunics and tabards. By the time a Jedi reaches knighthood, he is capable of sewing his own robes by hand, leaving neat, even seams on the borders of his hems and sleeves. 

It is commonly known that Master Windu’s robes possess a remarkable feature. 

His robes contain pockets. 

His pockets have been placed inside the lining of his robes, accessible by slipping his hand inside his deep sleeves. And select groups around the Temple possess the knowledge that Master Windu carries something very rare and valuable inside his pockets. 

On days like today, when he has been worn down by the selfish politics of the Senate or the hopeless state of warring sectors, when he looks at the next years' fiscal accounts and wonders where he will acquire the funds to continue the educational outreach program for the population that near in the Temple precinct, Mace fills his pockets up with candy. 

Honey sticks and ginger twists, the spicy resin that is so popular to chew on Ryloth; soft taffies that cling to one's teeth and small cakes baked with dried fruit and nuts. Mace loads up the pockets that line his robes and and heads to the brook gardens. 

The crechemasters often take their younglings here. The brook gardens are made up of miniature rivers, some no wider than the span of a hand, streaming alongside the moss-covered banks and cascading down small piles of river rocks. The younglings are allowed to splash in the brooks and soak themselves and their friends, to put bare toes and appendages in the water and run shrieking down the length of the streams, sending droplets of water scattering in the air. 

Mace enters the gardens with his hands tucked into his sleeves, observing the younglings at play. Several clans mixed together, monitored closely by their benevolent docents. He folds himself to the ground at the edge of one stream. 

Then the younglings notice him, and begin to crowd around. 

“Master, what do you have in your pockets today?” asks an eager Togruta youngling. There is nothing reticent about her nature, Mace thinks, containing his laughter. Some master will have his hands full in a decade or so.

“I suppose I ought to remind you about the dangers of making assumptions,” Mace tells her, and the Togruta wrinkles her nose. “But not today. Let’s investigate, shall we?”

Inside his pocket, there are cinnamon sweets and the powdered sugar confections so popular with human children, and the little hard candies that taste of muja and juma and cheechee berries that burst in one’s mouth after a few minutes of chewing. Mace passes candies out amongst the younglings, who thank him with shining eyes and sticky fingers. 

He gives one dark haired, blue-eyed boy a citrus drop, and as he does he sees a shatterpoint dance around the youngling in a familiar way. Is he for me? Mace wonders, looking at the boy. No, he realizes then, and thinks of his former padawan, who now sits beside him on the council. Depa, then. He will look forward to seeing how that particular constellation is arranged.

Jedi love their children. Mace is not the only one to come to visit with treats and small gifts. Often masters bring back handfuls of all the treasures that are dear to the younglings at the Temple: Small unpolished rocks with remarkable colors and glittering insets, the round glass marbles that the younglings trade back and forth. Mace remembers from his own childhood in the creche, his pockets filled with a collection of his treasures; bits of string and thread, a scrap of golden-orange shimmersilk from a master’s worn-out robe, dried leaves once plucked from the cut-flower garden by the kitchens. 

Here comes another master that the children recognize. Mace smiles as the younglings abandon him in order to crowd around the newcomer, sitting cross-legged on the banks of the brooks. The younglings gather around him, clamoring, _Master Kenobi, Master Kenobi._

The children know him as Master Kenobi, but to Mace he is scarcely older than a boy - Jinn’s boy, so recently knighted that his hair has not yet grown out of his padawan’s cut. And, Mace, reflects, he has been sewing his own robes for years now.

Obi-Wan slips his hand in his own pockets and passes out a series of crumbly black pastries to the waiting hands, saying, “No, no, here’s a sweetmeat for you, Ahsoka. I haven’t forgotten what you like.”

There are new lines of grief on Obi-Wan’s face. Mace had promised himself, after Jinn’s death, that he would keep an eye on the boy. A last promise, to an old friend.

Mace waits patiently while Obi-Wan empties out his pockets and the younglings leave him, one-by-one, to take off their soft-soled boots and wade into the brooks. Then he speaks. 

“Knight Kenobi,” Mace says. “What brings you here?”

Obi-Wan picks up a stray candy wrapper left behind on the moss and thoughtfully returns it to his pocket. “I like to come here,” he answers. “It is a good place to think.”

“So it is,” Mace agrees. 

“Qui-Gon liked to visit. He enjoyed watching the children play.”

“I recall.”

Jedi are comfortable with silence. Mace allows the space between them to grow quiet, but keeps himself present. He opens himself to the Force and infuses the silence with warmth, an invitation that Obi-Wan can speak to him if he so chooses. 

“I am concerned about Anakin,” Obi-Wan says at last, and Mace brings his focus to bear on him. “I don’t know what to do with him. Anakin...he is struggling.”

Mace nods in acknowledgement of this. He has seen it for himself, how the boy struggles, against the new restrictions and discipline of the Jedi, against an authority he questions, with morals and philosophies that he was not raised to understand. And ultimately against himself, because for all his bravado and belligerence, Mace believes that Anakin does want to belong here.

“I sense that Anakin is not the only one struggling in your relationship,” Mace responds.

The square lines of the knight’s shoulders never falter. Yet Mace knows he has hit upon a tender mark. 

“I worry that I am too lenient with him, but he seems to feel that I am too strict.” Obi-Wan hesitates. “I would be grateful for your advice, Master Windu.”

Mace spends a few moments in reflection, gazing at the brook-water rippling nearby, listening to the sounds of laughter. Obi-Wan waits respectfully. 

“As I recall, you had your own troubles in your apprenticeship, Knight Kenobi.”

“I lost my way once before,” Obi-Wan confesses. “I thought my path lay elsewhere. Now I look at Anakin, and I dread watching him go through the same experience.”

He considers his next words. “I was hard on you during your probation." 

This statement surprises Obi-Wan, he can tell. Mace smiles briefly, then continues on.

“I was newly appointed to the Council then. I believed in enforcing tradition, keeping us all tightly bound to a strict and narrow path. I thought sternness was needed, to keep you from straying too far out of bounds. I thought Qui-Gon should have been firmer with you. I did not believe that Qui-Gon would succeed with you where he had failed before.” 

Obi-Wan’s head comes up, watchful.

“I have come to see that I was wrong. That firmness was not what you needed then, but compassion. Assurance of belonging, connection. I watched you closely through your apprenticeship, Obi-Wan.”

Mace reaches into his robes and pulls out a honey drop. He holds it out to Obi-Wan. The knight stares at him, confusion evident in his young face. 

“You always liked these,” Mace says. “I remember.”

Obi-Wan slowly takes the candy out of his hand. 

“Now, as for Anakin—” Mace takes out another piece of candy from his pocket. “I believe Anakin prefers this kind.”

“Oh.” Obi-Wan blinks at him. “Thank you, master.”

Mace bends forward and takes off his boots, then his socks. Then he sheds his robe and steps into the brook, feeling the running water moving over his feet. Obi-Wan continues sitting on the banks, the sweets still in his hand.

“Eat your candy, Obi-Wan,” Mace says mildly. Obi-Wan obediently takes the wrapper off the honey drop and puts it in his mouth. “You are hard on yourself. Perhaps you should be more generous with your mistakes. Your struggles are perfectly normal, given your circumstances. Do not think that the Council meant for you to take on this pursuit alone. And do not forget that we all want Anakin to succeed. ”

Obi-Wan looks as though he would like to object, but cannot find a way to do so politely with the honey drop in his mouth. 

He walks idly up and down the stream with his hands tucked solemnly in his sleeves. He waits until he is certain that Obi-Wan has finished his candy before he speaks again. 

“Bring Anakin with you, next time you come here,” Mace advises. “He would like this place.”

Obi-Wan tucks Anakin's candy away in his pocket. “Yes,” he says. “I think he would.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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